All stories by Max Garner on BroadwayStars

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Theatre Review: ‘Oh Happy Day!’ at Center Stage by Max Garner

I am God – Without one friend, Alone in my purity. – Langston Hughes God is a concept by which we measure our pain. – John Lennon It still humbles me that this force that makes leave…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 07:39PM
Sunday, September 22, 2024

Theatre Review: August Wilson’s ‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’ at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company by Max Garner

Two up, eight to go. The Baltimore August Wilson Celebration has hit its stride. After Arena Players’ triumphant production of “Gem of the Ocean” in April (read our review), Chesapeake…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 03:44PM
Monday, September 9, 2024

Theatre Review: ‘Machinal’ at Fells Point Corner Theatre by Max Garner

Sofie Treadwell’s “Machinal” is an important play with a fascinating back story. It’s regarded by many as a crucial member of the 20th century American theatrical canon, but has been…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:12PM
Sunday, August 18, 2024

Theatre Review: ‘The Monroe Doctrine’ by Vest Pocket Productions at Theatre Project by Max Garner

Hog Island, Maryland isn’t really an island. At least, it doesn’t look like one on a map. Scan the Eastern Shore southward to a point in Dorchester County that’s due east of Lexington …

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 05:03PM
Monday, June 17, 2024

Theatre Review: ‘It’s Showdown Time’ at Arena Players by Max Garner

When Chesapeake Shakespeare Company unveiled its soulful adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” this spring, fans came out in droves. They loved the way this classic was re-framed with the sig…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 04:21PM

Theatre Review: ‘Crocodile Fever’ at Strand Theater Company by Max Garner

There’s just something about Irish playwrights, especially the current generation. In 2017, Baltimore audiences saw the American premiere of “Voices in the Rubble” by Darren Donahue at…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 04:05PM
Sunday, June 9, 2024

Theatre Review: ‘The Elephant in the Room’ at The Keegan Theatre by Max Garner

Those who were fortunate enough to catch Caleen Sinnette Jennings’ Queens Girl trilogy in recent years will find familiar terrain in Priyanka Shetty’s “The Elephant in the Room.” Mak…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:37PM
Monday, May 27, 2024

Theatre Review: ‘Love/Sick’ at Spotlighters Theatre by Max Garner

Described by its publisher as an unromantic comedy and darker cousin of “Almost, Maine,” John Cariani’s “Love/Sick” premiered as a collection of nine short plays sharing themes tha…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 04:19PM
Sunday, May 5, 2024

Theatre Review: ‘for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf’ at ArtsCentric by Max Garner

Many of us would like to think that when Ntozake Shange’s first play premiered Off-Broadway, the world was a vastly different place than it is now. Surely, the intervening years have produ…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:29PM
Sunday, April 28, 2024

Theatre Review: ‘Miss Holmes’ at Fells Point Corner Theatre by Max Garner

Agatha Christie’s considerable contributions notwithstanding, it is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who is credited with inventing the modern detective procedural. Three years before Christie’s b…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 08:23PM
Wednesday, April 10, 2024

Theatre Review: ‘Gem of the Ocean’ at Arena Players by Max Garner

When the Baltimore August Wilson Celebration was announced last week, the project was already off to a head-start. Arena Players had already planned “Gem of the Ocean” for their 70th sea…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 10:20AM
Monday, April 8, 2024

Theatre Review: ‘alight, sweet hearted’ at Strand Theater Company by Max Garner

In the familiar Grimms’ Fairy Tale version of the Hansel and Gretel story, a young brother and sister are left to starve in a forest, their father forced by a wicked stepmother to sacrific…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:19PM
Saturday, March 23, 2024

Theatre Review: ‘Mexodus’ at Center Stage by Max Garner

Many theater companies like to talk about “challenging” their audiences or delivering “art with a message,” perhaps as an apology for forcing us to eat our proverbial vegetables. Som…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 10:47PM
Sunday, October 29, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘Outward Bound’ at Spotlighters Theatre by Max Garner

Jane E. Nitsch and Sam David. Photo by Machpe Protography. In “Guys and Dolls,” the character Nicely-Nicely experiences a rebirth of spirituality, scared straight by a dream which taught…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 10:38PM
Thursday, October 5, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘Think Pink! A Gay Play Festival’ presented by Pink Pen Theatre at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church by Max Garner

For many years the short play form has been a well-respected point of entry into writing for the stage. In the late 20th century, The Humana Festival popularized a sub-genre: the ten-minute …

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 09:29AM
Sunday, September 3, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘The Boundary: A Life and Death Experience’ by Submersive Productions by Max Garner

If you had the ability and the means to customize your afterlife experience, would you do it? Baltimore’s Submersive Productions’ latest project casts its audience in the role of marketi…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 11:55AM
Sunday, August 13, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘Lyra and the Ferocious Beast’ by Truepenny Projects at The Voxel by Max Garner

The season of summer blockbusters is upon us. Movie theaters everywhere are filled with big stories, employing big casts, and consuming big budgets. It’s enough to give one a sense of scre…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 07:37PM
Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘The Code Switch’ by Sisters Freehold at Baltimore Theatre Project by Max Garner

American linguist Einar Haugen coined the term “code-switching” in 1954, to describe “the mixing of languages or dialects across different ethnic or racial demographics.” A later wor…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 08:22PM
Sunday, July 16, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘What Was Done’ by the Baltimore Playwrights Festival at Spotlighters Theatre by Max Garner

Maryland’s last historically recognized lynching happened on October 18, 1933. Playwright Jack L.B. Gohn used the date (but none of the other details) of George Armwood’s brutal torture …

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 11:27AM
Saturday, May 27, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘Nina’ at Arena Players by Max Garner

In 1946, 13-year-old Eunice Waymon made her piano concert debut. Her parents were forced to vacate their front row seats in the segregated venue. Eight years later, she found herself gigging…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 12:43PM
Sunday, May 21, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ at Vagabond Players by Max Garner

“Cool Hand Luke” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” are both high on any list of classic films of the modern period. They’re the same kind of hero/martyr story, centered on on…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:25PM
Friday, May 19, 2023

‘A Quick 5’ with Playwrights of the 2023 Variations Project presented by Rapid Lemon Productions by Max Garner

From established stage authors to wannabe first-timers, playwrights from all over the region are drawn each year to create a unique ten-minute play festival called The Variations Project. Fo…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 04:14PM
Monday, May 8, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘The Lady Was a Gentleman’ at Strand Theater by Max Garner

Barbara Kahn’s screwball comedy, “The Lady Was a Gentleman,” is a hilarious mélange of six disparate women in 1858 St. Louis. Charlotte Cushman (Julia Williams), a famous actor, is on…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 12:32PM
Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘Sizwe Banzi is Dead’ at Arena Players by Max Garner

In October, 1972, a new play made its world premiere in Cape Town, South Africa. Published under the title “Sizwe Bansi [sic] is Dead,” the piece was devised by Athol Fugard, John Kani, …

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 12:19PM
Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘King Henry VIII, or, All Is True’ by Baltimore Shakespeare Factory at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church by Max Garner

“Henry VIII” is one of Shakespeare’s less frequently produced plays. It actually isn’t Shakespeare’s alone, rather, it was a collaboration with John Fletcher. Here is a fun fact (t…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 03:01PM

Theatre Review: ‘Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike’ at Spotlighters Theatre by Max Garner

In the 1980s and ‘90s, Christopher Durang was at the peak of his popularity. He’d arrived at precisely the right time, when the world of American stage comedy desperately needed an heir …

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:42PM
Sunday, April 16, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘Nevermore’ by Stillpointe Theatre Collective at Area 405 by Max Garner

It is a chaotic time for several of Baltimore’s small theater companies. Stillpointe Theatre, Rapid Lemon Productions, and Baltimore Shakespeare Factory all lost their performance spaces a…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 10:08PM
Sunday, April 2, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘The Mountaintop’ at Vagabond Players by Max Garner

It’s late at night. There’s a thunderstorm. A man unlocks the door to a moldy motel room and steps inside. He hopes to get a little rest after a long day of travel and giving speeches. T…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 08:14PM
Monday, February 20, 2023

Theatre Review: ArtsCentric’s Production of ‘Crowns’ at Baltimore Center Stage by Max Garner

Through partnerships with Everyman, Olney, and Center Stage, Baltimore’s ArtsCentric is presenting its mainstage works in regional theaters all across the state. In fact, it’s been a min…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 06:11PM
Monday, February 13, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘Stick Fly’ at Arena Players by Max Garner

Fresh on the heels of a four million dollar grant award, Baltimore’s Arena Players is in high spirits. Renovations are still two years away, though, and the company is currently focused on…

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 03:46PM
Sunday, January 29, 2023

Theatre Review: ‘An Evening of May Miller’ at Fells Point Corner Theatre by Max Garner

“We create only from familiar elements, the possibilities of which are enhanced by imagination.”– May Miller, “The Creative Urge,” Journal of National Association of College Women …

SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 04:01PM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 15, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 01, 2025: Glengarry Glen Ross
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic